Thursday, August 2, 2007

Poetry Thursday

God and Catfish

One more poem
about God, and sheep,
plump genus Ovis.
Recreated artificial sacrificial gesture,
how many symbols does it take
to describe an event.
Ovis overdone-is.

Give me a few lines about the guts
of non-symbolic fish.
You know, the real kind.
Like a catfish. Unapologetically ugly,
lurking like all good Ictalurus do.
What poet could find God in such a body,
water cockroach with
barbels hanging,
lips bulging, burping along
the scum of the Santee.

Hand me lumped-up
weighted-down
water-logged flesh, not that crisp
tasteless wafer-thin wafer, wait
in line, head bowed, starve to be saved.

Starve? No thanks.
God knows I love a good
corn-meal coated, pan-fried catfish
any day of the week.

10 comments:

Pauline said...

"how many symbols does it take
to describe an event."

This made me chuckle. In fact, the whole poem made me chuckle, especially this:

"Hand me lumped-up
weighted-down
water-logged flesh, not that crisp
tasteless wafer-thin wafer, wait
in line, head bowed, starve to be saved."

Well done!

Anonymous said...

Welcome to Poetry Thursday and a wonderful funny entry. The taste of catfish is divine. :)

Sr. Heather said...

Whoa. That is awesome, especially the last two stanzas. And welcome to Poetry Thursday - it is indeed a wonderful community (says she who has only been around about a month).

Peace and blessings,
Hedwyg

Constance Brewer said...

I liked this! It made me smile, and think at the same time. Good job!

Anonymous said...

Oh - I love it! This week was my first foray into Poetry Thursday also. I hope you keep participating - I'd love to see more.

This poem made me think of Annie Dillard's Pilgrim at Tinker Creek. Are you familiar with it? It's prose, not poetry, but might as well be; the way she wrote about the natural world - water bugs and all - set my brain on fire when I first read her work.

Crafty Green Poet said...

There's a lot of ideas in this, I like how you bring everything together.

abby - the geek girl said...

This was amazing!! It made me smile and the title initially drew me in but I LOVE how you tied everything together!! Just a really really great poem. I want to read more!! :)

Anonymous said...

A fine picture, witty & vivid. (Isn't ovis the perfect generic name for sheep?)

sister AE said...

I think it is definitely easier to find God in catfish when the breading is nice and crispy - with hush puppies!

I'm glad I stopped by (I'm catching up on the Poetry Thursdays I missed while I was out of town).

Anonymous said...

I stumbled across your blog and the next thing I know an hour has gone by. I hope you publish your work and are a well-known author. everything I have read here makes me want to cry it's so good. I yearn to be able to write like this.